March 16, 2017
Division of Biology and ADVANCE Distinguished Lecture Series Seminar March 17
Submitted by Division of Biology
Division of Biology and ADVANCE Distinguished Lecture Series will host Amy Pasquinelli from University of California, San Diego at 4 p.m. Friday, March 17, in 221 Ackert Hall. As part of the Division of Biology Seminar Series, Pasquinelli will present "Elucidating the Dark Side of the MicroRNA."
The abstract for the lecture is derived from the discovery that regulatory RNAs control almost every biological pathway has revolutionized our understanding of gene expression over the past decade. At the forefront, microRNAs, or miRNAs, have proven to be an abundant and essential class of RNA molecules in plants and animals. The importance of miRNAs in human biology is highlighted by the increasing recognition that misregulation of specific miRNA pathways contributes to complex diseases, including cancer, heart ailments and neuronal pathologies. Research in the Pasquinelli lab is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the biogenesis, specificity and regulatory functions of miRNAs in an endogenous context. Pasquinelli's lab primarily uses Caenorhabditis elegans worms as a model animal system to investigate some of the most challenging problems in this relatively new field of study.
If you would like to visit with Pasquinelli, please contact Anna Zinovyeva at zinovyeva@k-state.edu.